Week 6: Tagging, Folksonomies & Technorati

#13. I set up an account on del.icio.us. Then, I imported my bookmarks. That may be helpful as I move back and forth from work and home computers. This might be helpful for research assistance if there are outside web sites relating to specific topics. For example, the APA style web sites could be bookmarked. Social networking sites could be helpful to both our academic and public library patrons. For example, if we could advertize our library outpost on a social networking site that students use, we may have more people using our services.

Some terms:

Tagging: categorizing (unstructured, free-form)

Tag: a word you use to describe a bookmark.

Examples: Flickr uses tagging. Technorati & librarything also tag

del.icio.us: popular social bookmarking site. It categorizes bookmarks & I can use on any computer

I saw an interesting article about tagging and what works vs. what doesn't using the examples of Library Thing and Amazon at: http://www.librarything.com/thingology/2007/02/when-tags-works-and-when-they-dont.php

#14.Technorati: leading search tool & authority for blogs; about 3 years old; search blog posts, tags, or blog directories (headings). Over 175,000 new blogs a day!!!

Tagging can be a helpful tool in finding material on the Internet. With many people tagging items, there are a lot of choices out there if I want to find information and media/photos on a particular topic. I'm not as comfortable with tags yet, but I can see that they are an easy way to access and also to save materials for later retrieval. It's easy to add several descriptive words or tags to something that I post, and it's easy to find many items when I look for them. However, with so many things to look at, it is sometimes hard to find the quality materials for which I am hunting. It seems to be easy to find the "popular" but perhaps not always to find the "excellent" material.

I can see possible uses of blogging for a library such as on a teen web site where there may be the most interest. There could be other uses also, such as a "comment" section on a library site.

Some blogs I find to be less than helpful and others are more informative. I would not generally spend a lot of time blogging my thoughts for others, but blogging could be helpful in some work related groups where people just need to state their thoughts. For example, we have a lot of discussion via email on our listservs, and those could be on a blog or wiki. That way, those who are interested could read and discuss the issues while the rest of the library personnel would not have to wade through the discussion on their email.

#15. Tools are important, and technology tools in libraries have been developing rapidly. However, more important than tools are patrons and what they want and need. Sometimes, technology tools, such as those covered in Library 2.0, may be just the thing that our patrons want and need. Other times, they may not be. It's important not to let the focus on technology at all costs be the overriding driver in all of the library decisions. Right now, I'm especially interested in finding out what method of asking the patrons what they want would be most helpful. Could we use a blog or wiki to find this out, or would just asking the patrons at the reference desk be the most effective method? Most of the articles I read through this exercise are positive about new technology and using it in libraries. It's good to have new tools, so learning and participating in Library 2.0 is helpful.